SOUPER BOWL V

Centers for Spiritual Living and other Faith communities around the country team up to BEAT HUNGER!

Soup-er Bowl 2017 Stats:

2018 Souper Bowl Standings

Per Capita “Score”

Average Attendance

Total Cans/$
As of 1/28

1st QTR
(as of 1/14)

2nd QTR
(as of 1/21)

3rd QTR
(as of 1/28)

Amazing Grace Spiritual Center

17.7

107

1899

383

472

1044

Genesis Global Spiritual Center

15.1

65

983

334

313

336

CSL-Seattle

10.3

434

4453

1201

1209

2043

CSL-Olympia

5.4

53

284

49

97

138

CSL-Redding

1.0

133

135

23

65

47

Grand Total Donations Reported to Date

7754

1990

2156

3608

Scroll down to the bottom of the page for Souper Bowl Promotional Materials!

This is a fun, friendly and successful competition to benefit our neighbors in need by collecting and donating as many cans of soup and stew as possible between Mid-January and Super Bowl Sunday. It all started in 2014 when Center for Spiritual Living Seattle and Mile High Church (whose NFL teams the Seahawks and Broncos were squaring off in Super Bowl 48) teamed up for some friendly competition. To date, nearly 40,000 cans of food have been collectively donated to local food banks! Seattle-area CSLs Amazing Grace, Genesis and CSL Seattle are already planning for another fun effort from Jan 7- Feb 4, 2018 and invite you to join together with us for this “Souper Opportunity” to BEAT HUNGER in our communities.

We would welcome your participation and are happy to share our experiences and some ideas and tools we’ve developed that might help you plan and succeed. Those tools include some outreach templates we developed and are happy to let you adapt and use, a “standings page” and a summary outline of how we’ve done this to help you come up with your own plan!

Please join us in the fight to BEAT Hunger and if you would like, our friendly “donations per capita” competition. Let’s treat and move our feet together to love and help our neighbors and to create the better world we all want and deserve!

“Souper Bowl” Background and Fun Facts:

2014 “Souper Bowl I” to BEAT HUNGER Results: Teams: CSL Seattle and Denver’s Mile Hi Church (whose NFL Teams the Seahawks and Broncos were squaring off in Super Bowl 48) Results: Over 11,000 cans were donated to local food banks by the two congregations. Winner: The friendly competition was declared a tie and a HUGE WIN in the effort to love our neighbors and BEAT Hunger!

2016 “Souper Bowl III” to BEAT HUNGER Results: Teams: Amazing Grace and CSL Seattle Results: Over 6,000 cans of Soup and Stew donated Winner: Amazing Grace were once again the Per Capita Souper Bowl Champions!
The real winners of course are the people who are served by the Ballard and University Food Banks, who benefited from the 6,000 cans of food donated. Together we achieved our goals of joining together to BEAT HUNGER and of showing as much support for our neighbors as we do for our sports teams.

2017 “Souper Bowl IV” to BEAT HUNGER Results: Teams: CSL-Corona, Center for Joyful Living Delaware, CSL-Jacksonville, CSL-Temecula Valley, CSL San Jose, CSL-Santa Rosa, Amazing Grace, Genesis Global Spiritual Center and CSL Seattle Results: 15,699 cans of Soup and Stew donated Winner: Amazing Grace were the Per Capita Souper Bowl Champions three years running!
The real winners of course are the people who are served by food banks nationwide including the Ballard and University Food Banks, who benefited from the 15,699 cans of food donated. Together we achieved our goals of joining together to BEAT HUNGER and of showing as much support for our neighbors as we do for our sports teams.

How We’ve Done This – Ideas for Your Consideration:

As mentioned, this started as a friendly competition between CSL Seattle and the Denver Mile Hi Church when our City’s Teams were facing off in the 2014 Super Bowl as a way to show as much support for our neighbors as we do for our sports teams. It’s continued as a friendly competition among local churches. We think it would be fun to continue the friendly “per capita competition” (total number of cans divided by average attendance) and will compile “standings” if you choose to send us results, but the real goal is to enlist everyone we can in the effort to help our neighbors in need.

Tell us you’re in so we can add you to the “National Foodbank League” webpage!

Contact a local food bank or other recipient of your choice to get them on board – ours helps with outreach and picks up the donations

Plan the dates: we’re planning Kickoff for Sunday 1/7/17 and final collection/tallies Sunday 2/4/17, the other NFL’s Super Bowl Sunday

Publicity: we use our Website and Social Media, we hand out flyers with what to bring and the dates, send emails to the congregation, and post signs and collection bins around the building (feel free to use/adapt our sample posters). Ask your food bank if they can help. This year we’re also reaching out to our local NFL team to try to get them to help – enthusiasm for the Seattle Seahawks is high in our congregation, so we’ve made the most of that support to encourage congregants to support those in need in our community with the same enthusiasm.

We encouraged people to donate at whatever level they can afford – be it one can, a dozen, a case, or whatever. Some congregants watch the stores for sales, some go to Costco and bring back one or more flats, and others went online to Amazon and had one or more cases delivered.

Since the Seattle Seahawks call fans “12s,” one of our slogans was “Be a 12 for the Hungry and donate 12 cans (or cases) of soup/stew to feed the hungry.”

Members of our Team are stationed by the can collection points to greet, encourage and thank donors.

We collect and display the cans in our lobby until the final Sunday. Each week throughout the drive we do a count, announce our goals and how many we’ve collected so far – it seems to help build enthusiasm.